Trump DOJ reportedly rushing to indict Comey

Trump’s newly installed acting U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia, Lindsey Halligan

(Image credit: Jacquelyn Martin / AP Photo)

What happened

The Justice Department is preparing to seek an indictment against former FBI Director James Comey as early as today, multiple news organizations reported last night. President Donald Trump’s newly installed acting U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia, former White House aide Lindsey Halligan, was reportedly racing to secure criminal charges against Comey, for allegedly lying to Congress, before a key statute of limitations runs out next Tuesday. The previous U.S. attorney, Erik Siebert, resigned under pressure last week after declining to charge Comey or another Trump target, New York Attorney General Letitia James.

Who said what

Halligan — “who has never prosecuted a criminal case in her career as an insurance lawyer — plans to present evidence to a grand jury,” ABC News said, even after prosecutors presented her with a “detailed memo recommending that she decline” to charge Comey due to “insufficient evidence.”

Comey oversaw the initial 2016 investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia, and Trump has “long viewed him as a nemesis and urged aides to find ways to extract payback,” The Wall Street Journal said. The president’s recent “unabashed demand” that Attorney General Pam Bondi bring charges against Comey, “even as she has expressed reservations about the case,” has “put her in a bind” and “alarmed” current and former DOJ officials who worried that Trump’s fundamental transformation of the department “into an arm of his agenda” will damage its “credibility in ways that will be difficult to repair.”

What next?

A grand jury in Virginia “would have to approve any indictment,” a typically “low bar” the Trump Justice Department has failed to clear several times in recent months, The Associated Press said. There is “no guarantee the grand jury will determine that the government has met the evidentiary threshold” to indict Comey, The New York Times said, or even that “a career prosecutor would be willing to present the case to the grand jury,” leaving it to Halligan or another DOJ official.

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Explore More

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.